Advertising
is the product of human social and economic development, but advertising itself
is also a cultural phenomenon, whether its production, existence or
effectiveness are inseparable from a specific cultural background. In western
countries, advertising is closely related to daily life, and people are exposed
to about 3,000 advertisements on average every day. Therefore, advertising has
become a form of communication that can best show social phenomenon and public
psychology. With the development of world economy from regional economy to
global economy, international communication is becoming more and more frequent,
while language and culture differences affect people's understanding of foreign
advertisements and commodities.

If
today's society is compared to a beautiful picture, the picture will be
eclipsed without the strong color of advertisement. Advertisements are very
familiar to modern people. It pervades every aspect of modern society.
Advertisements can be seen on TV, radio, newspapers and magazines, cars and
clothes. A world without advertising is unthinkable and possible. People living
in today's society unconsciously analyze the information contained in
advertisements every day. Each day, as many as 3,000 types of ads flood the
eyes of Americans, according to svoka, an American advertising researcher. Just
because of the high popularity rate and the speed of dissemination of
advertisements and the general acceptance of advertisements, advertising
planners tend to implant deep social culture in advertisements to attract
people's attention.

According
to Canadian advertising researcher les, there is a certain similarity between
the expression of perfect life in modern advertisements and the stereotype of
successful people in modern society. And the close connection between the two
gives the advertisement deeper social and cultural connotation. Therefore, when
you see an advertisement, you can more easily interpret the details contained
in the advertisement if you have some proper social background knowledge.

With
the rapid formation of global integration, advertisements among countries
spread to each other. However, there are always many misunderstandings and
problems in the translation of advertisements from other countries. In the
final analysis, the reason is the misunderstanding caused by the differences
between the two cultures. In particular, the subtle semantic differences in
language and the relationship between humanistic background. Take posion, a
popular perfume produced by French well-known brand dior as an example, which
can well reflect the differences between Chinese and western cultures. Posion
translates as "poison." As a Chinese, it is hard to imagine that a
bottle of perfume could be called poison. Because in Chinese culture, poison is
contrary to the traditional aesthetic standard, it is an object that brings
misfortune to people. So buyers were scarce at first. If we only interpret the
name of this perfume in Chinese culture, it is undoubtedly a misunderstanding
to the designer. Because, in the eyes of westerners, this bottle contains a
kind of praise for women. In their eyes, posion describes a woman who is sexy,
charming and elegant. And the perfume that this named contains can add female
glamour, let a man fall for it implication. Because of this cultural
background, this fragrance is popular among female consumers in the west. After
understanding this background, we translated posion as "love god",
and it really attracted the attention and love of Chinese consumers.

With
the rapid development of modern business, advertising plays an increasingly
important role in social trade. As deffler put it: nothing but money can be
money without the effect of advertising. It is because advertising plays an
important role in the economic development of western society. Thus, the cost
of advertising, like commodity raw materials and labor costs, becomes an
important expense in the process of industrial production. Up to now,
advertising has been called the biggest gun-free battleground in industrial
society. And this battlefield permeates the whole society.

The
form of advertisement is various, but the language form is still the main form
of expression in advertisement. Usually, the language used in advertisements is
carefully selected to meet a special requirement and achieve a special effect.
Therefore, we can find that advertising language and social culture are
inseparable, in a broad sense, the relationship between the two is the
interaction between culture and language. In most people's minds, language is
an important part of culture. Even some social scholars believe that language
is the cornerstone of culture. Without language, they argue, culture cannot
exist. From another perspective, language is polished by culture, deeply
influenced by culture and reflects cultural phenomena. In this sense,
advertisement is the mirror of the whole social culture. Norris argues that
advertising is always a proof of The Times.

But
culture is a complete system, which contains a series of elements such as
people's way of life, beliefs, customs, values and so on. And passed on by
people with the same attitude. The influence of culture permeates People's
Daily life. Culture determines how people dress, eat, live and travel. It
affects how people buy and use products, and affects people's satisfaction. So
it is crucial and most difficult for advertisers to see where culture is
heading. Because sometimes cultural factors are subtle and obscure; Sometimes
they are so obvious and compelling. It is cultural factors that make
advertisements impressive and entertaining. But it can sometimes be hard for
foreigners to understand. Therefore, for an international advertiser, it is
necessary to understand not only the language of the country but also the
culture of the country. Otherwise, the advertisement will be invalidated easily
due to errors in the translation process. From the following examples, we can
clearly see the problem of advertising language translation errors caused by
cultural differences:

When
a Chinese lipstick brand called fangfang was introduced to the western market,
many westerners were surprised and confused by the word "fang".
Because the word fang in English means fangtooth, or fangtooth of a snake.

White
elephant battery, if we simply translate it into white elephant, will also
cause confusion in the west, because in English, white elephant means pompous.

Thus
it can be seen that when an advertiser is making an international advertising
plan, he must take into account cultural factors such as custom, lifestyle,
totem worship and values.

With
the rapid development of global commercial trade, in today's society, more and
more advertisers begin to pay attention to social and cultural factors when
planning international advertisements. International advertisers and designers
must understand the implications of transnational culture. Only in this way can
the value of goods be reflected in the advertisement and the consumers find
resonance in the advertisement, thus promoting consumption and achieving the
maximum effect of the advertisement. Modern advertising is closely related to
popular taste and popular culture. In the west, especially in the United
States, advertising has become the representative of modern life culture. Most
people believe that American advertisements can reflect the culture and
connotation of contemporary American society. In order to better understand
English advertisements and expand China's influence in the international
advertising industry, we must make greater efforts to understand and pay
attention to the western culture contained in western advertisements.